The big picture: Buckhead groups update, educate public

Jim Durrett, Executive Director of Buckhead CID, explains a project during a meeting at the Buckhead Theater on July 27 to better explain how Buckhead’s various organizations work together.

Buckhead Community Improvement District Executive Director Jim Durrett told a crowd during a July 27 meeting at Buckhead Theater that the second phase of its banner project, improving Peachtree Road, is nearly complete.

Durrett said in about a month, orange road cones and construction crews will be removed from the section of Peachtree Road that starts at Georgia 400 and goes up to Peachtree Dunwoody Road.

There are other projects on the CID’s agenda, but it’s an agenda shared with several other organizations. The meeting was called to help the public better understand how the various organizations in Buckhead – the CID, Livable Buckhead and the Buckhead Area Transportation Management Association in particular – weave together to plan, build and promote the community.

Denise Starling, Executive Director of both Livable Buckhead and BATMA, said the separation of the groups confuses residents.

“We find that when we’re out people don’t know all the things we’re doing,” Starling said.

Durrett plans for the meeting to become an annual event.

“Unless you bring people together, people just don’t get it,” he said.

Starling also updated the audience on plans to build a 5 mile Ga. 400 trail that will eventually connect to the Atlanta BeltLine project. The trail, estimated to cost $10 million, would create new opportunities for green space using unconventional ideas, like creating a park underneath the Georgia 400 overpass.

She said the plan will transform dormant spots around the community into some useful green space for residents. Atlanta City Council District 7, which includes Buckhead, has the fewest parks in the city.

“It’s really taking some of those dead spaces in the community and leveraging those into great areas,” Starling said.

Jim Durrett, Executive Director of Buckhead CID, Denise Starling, Executive Director of Livable Buckhead, held a meeting at the Buckhead Theater on July 27 to better explain how Buckhead’s various organizations work together.